The Midwood International and Cultural Center on Central Avenue once housed more than a dozen nonprofit groups, many of which served Charlotte’s immigrant and arts communities.
That was before Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools sold the site to a development company, Conformity Corporation, in 2021.
Remaining tenants must vacate the site by June, and a property broker is now advertising the historic landmark as an “extremely rare” development opportunity.
International House is now wrapping up its final weeks at the 1817 Central Avenue site, before the lease ends in June.
Director Autumn Weil says they had built a community of internationally minded people for 12 years at the former Midwood Elementary School. The site first opened in 1935 and was designated as a historic landmark in 2016 by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.
“When this building was fully occupied, we had 15 to 20 different folks having office space in here, including Charlotte Lit, the Light (Factory), ActionNC, League of Women Voters, Grameen Bank, the Japanese Association. I could go on and on,” Weil said. “And now we’re all going our separate ways.”
Charlotte Lit has relocated to the hygge coworking site in Belmont. The Light Factory moved to the VAPA Center in uptown’s Fourth Ward. And now International House is preparing a move to Elizabeth, across from Independence Park.
“In some ways, we'll be having a homecoming. Forty-two years ago, we were founded at St. John's Baptist Church in Elizabeth,” she said. “We were founded by a group of families that had relocated here from around the world so that they could create community.”
The Elizabeth location, at 1611 East 7th Street, comes with perks, like dedicated parking spaces and proximity to public transportation. But the search for a new home was difficult. It took more than a year to find the right fit.
“We'll have two classrooms like we do now for our English language acquisition classes. We will have a law clinic, as we do now, and a cultural club area. So, we don't lose anything that we were doing as far as our mission goes,” Weil said.
International House is expected to close for about a week at the end of May and reopen by May 30, the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
The new location is smaller, about 5,000 square feet compared to the 13,000 they had in Plaza Midwood. So the organization won’t be able to offer shared space like it did before.
“One of the biggest things that I think we were able to offer the community was our auditorium. We would have international festivals here. Really every weekend our auditorium is rented out,” she said. “And unfortunately, we can't replicate that. And I think that's the biggest thing that is going to be lost.”
Property broker Jones Lang LaSalle, or JLL, is advertising the Plaza Midwood location for redevelopment as a retail or mixed-use site. A marketing brochure describes the location as “strategically positioned in the heart of Plaza Midwood” and as an “irreplaceable opportunity” for development. The brochure does not mention that the site is designated as a historic landmark.
Stewart Gray is a programs manager with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission. He says he hopes that any redevelopment would seek to incorporate historic components.
“It's a well-preserved, early 20th-century school building that was obviously a central part of the neighborhood historically and designated because of that significance a number of years ago. And it'd be unfortunate if the community lost that historic resource,” Gray said.
If a demolition application were made for the site, Gray says the commission could delay the action for up to one year. During that year, they would seek to find a preservation solution for the property.
Property broker JLL did not respond to our request for comment.
